Skunk Sounds

A thunderous skunk
woke me this morning.
An avalanche of a thousand bottles.
The industrial sough of hydraulic brakes.
Down the lane behind our home
the garbage truck pulled closer
to our detached garage.

Other skunk sounds follow
as my feet drum the floorboards
in a staccato scale towards the stairs:
my popping kneecaps,
a car alarm off somewhere,
and the off-key warble of a bird
insulting the dawn.

They stab me in my foggy lurch
through the downstairs living-room
where the drone of a window AC,
and its cicada brethren
(in every neighborhood window)
become a canvas of white noise.

The neighbor's dog
and his neighbor's dog
argue over who is top dog,
and I wish the air was dead.
Oil is what the hinge screams
on the kitchen door.

Tiki hisses.
I knock over his food bowl
with a garbage bag filled with yesterday,
and days before
of silent waste.
Through the sound of my curses
I rush out the back.

I like to imagine a world
of only two sounds:
listening

and silence
as I hear the echo
of the garbage truck driving off,
as I stand in the lane in my brown skin
and gray shorts
with nothing to say
that my haggard breath has not.

The poor are dying in Africa.
We are ruled by a President
that doesn't care
so I should not bemoan
this small injustice
because it's quiet now

and anything I could say
would only break
what peace I have.